I
am at the checkout stand in a large Asian supermarket in Los Angeles with two
containers of tofu (sprouted, organic, firm), fresh shitake and nori. The
patron in front of me, a middle-aged Japanese -speaking woman with a young
child, glances quietly over her shoulder at my selections, mumbles something
quietly to the child, and, hesitantly asks me, “You can eat?” I reply, “Yes. Of
course! Can you eat tofu?” “But I am Japanese,” she says, pointing to her nose.
I continue, “But, why do youlike
it?”

Silence.
It’s the same exchange I experience from many Japanese practitioners of chado (the way of tea) when I ask them why they have
studied it for a long time.

There
is general consensus that “You are what you eat,,”
yet there are many interpretations of what “you” and perhaps also “we”
actually mean. At a minimum, what,
and even how, humans eat creates
our corporeal selves. Looking deeper, we can see that our choices of foodstuffs and, it appears, foodways, also enable us to know who we are, how others know us
and, even further, who we think others might be. The way of washoku (Japanese cuisine) is an excellent vehicle by which to
explore some of these ideas.

According
to author and scholar Katarzyna Cwiertka, the notion of “national” cuisine is
an idea born no earlier than the 19th century. Prior to that social
class and regional availabilty of foodstuffs mostly defined the culinary
conventions. It was the “opening” of Japan by the intrusion of Western powers
that revolutionized existing Japanese conventions, from form and taste to
dining furniture and utensils.

Cwiertka’s
Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity is a well-written, thoughtfully conceived, scholarly examination
of the topic. She initially considers the post-sakoku (isolation) period and the growing multi-cultural
foreign presence in Japan, followed by the spread of Japanese food beyond the
archipelago. Then she identifies several transforming factors affecting the
evolution of the modern Japanese diet: the impact of imperialism, emulation of
Western political and economic models, the rise of an “urban mass gastronomy”,
the evolution of military and school catering and home cooking, and the
post-war climb from desperation to relative wealth.

Is
there something unique about Japanese food that seasons national pride?
Cwiertka states, “For present–day Japanese, rice, soy sauce and fresh seafood
are the ultimate symbols of ‘Japaneseness,’ symbols more powerful than the
cherry blossom or the national flag, in that they satisfy visceral cravings.”
Yet it is only relatively recently that these three ingredients have turned
into standard components of the daily meals of all Japanese people. She
concludes there is nothing purely Japanese about a meal based on rice - soup -
side dishes, with soy sauce as the dominant flavoring agent.

“The
position of rice in the Japanese diet remains ambivalent. The symbolic
importance of rice in Japanese history and its role as currency in the
pre-modern Japanese economy are indisputable; it was, to be sure, a preferred
staple, but there was not enough of it to feed everybody. Scholars have not yet
been able to reach consensus as to who ate how much rice and how often outside
the urban centers, where white rice had for centuries been a daily staple.”

The
New York Timesreported that in 1994,
when Japan’s domestic rice crop was severely limited, everyone – including the
Emperor and Empress – had to rely on imports from the United States, Thailand
and China. Domestically grown rice was reserved for school children’s lunches;
meanwhile, commoners were trying to trick the auto settings on their rice
cookers to deal with what were perceived as inferior imports, but to no avail.
The imported rice never tasted, looked or handled quite right.

“Cooks, publicists and even scholars inside as well as outside
Japan tend to drape Japanese cuisine in an aura of exoticism, uniqueness and
traditionalism … cultivating the myth of Japanese cuisine as refined,
time-honored philosophy and practice, and extending the aesthetic qualities of kaisekiinto
a kind of eternal attribute of every Japanese meal, regardless of class and
degree of affluence. Such fetishized, sentimental notions of the past do not
merely falsify history, but also distort our understanding of the present,”
Cwiertka comments. Webster’s online dictionary defines kaiseki as a “Japanese tasting menu”. The term’s origin is
meeting (kai), place (seki). But it’s more poetically rendered by
traditionalists as the warmed (kai)
rock (seki) that monk - mendicants
would hold against their stomachs to ward off hunger after the last meal of the
day.

In
contrast, the City of New York will prohibit in March 2013 the sale of 16 oz. super-sized,
sugar-containing sodas and other non-diet sweetened drinks at restaurants,
concession stands and other eateries. The controversial law is in recognition
of escalating rates of obesity and the resulting diabetes and high blood
pressure in the general population. The reaction of a vocal minority may be
compared to those who oppose gun control: “It’s my god-given right as an
American to ‘super-size’ if I want to, damn it!” It took some time, but folks
finally realize that they could buy two eight-ounce portions.

One might easily come to a refinement of the “We Are = What We
Eat” equation: Food feeds [national] identity. Cwiertka recognizes that there is in fact a strongly
held but mistaken belief that projects an aura of ”timeless continuity and
authenticity” on to washoku.
Cwiertka observes that it might be argued that the most typically Japanese aspect of Japanese gastronomy is the very adoption
of many foreign culinary elements
into “Japanese” cuisine.It may in fact be the quickest way for
the three centuries-isolated Japanese population to cross international
boundaries without need of passport or visa.

Going back to that supermarket encounter, what might that
Japanese shopper think of my eating “her” food? Cwiertka tags Japanese
food–eating gaijin as being“… young, modern and an itsy bit wacky.” Could
we not say the same about Japanese folks who mayo-naize (rhymes with
“romanticize”) just about everything (that is not already liquid) to give it a
dash of Euro-ness? According to Wikipedia mayo has
been a great multi-cultural / international condiment for a long time, changing
personality with localized adaptations as it crosses cultural borders.

Looking from the “other” perspective, Western affinity for
Oriental (East and Southeast Asian) food has grown in demand among non-Asians
as it has become more accessible in stores and restaurants. The Japanese
mayonnaise in those squishy bottles has many international fans, including
those who, for lack of access to Japanese markets, will forgo the bottle and
attempt to replicate it the home kitchen from online
recipies. Perhaps the highest formal accolade of Asian taste is the addition
of umamiinto
the Western catalog of tastes, joining sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Whether
this awakening will foster a greater appreciation of the entire
Five-Phases-system that marks the food and life style fundamental to
Traditional Oriental Medicine remains an open question.

Arguably, the most provocative of all Japanese culinary
curiosities co-opted by the West is the sushi craze that has taken the world by
storm since the 1970s. Given the general lack of enthusiasm in the West for
eating raw flesh, it is very hard to imagine why this ever caught on. What got
burger ‘n’ barbeque mavens to open up and say, “Ahhh-hi!”? And, further, calling a few slivers of cold fish a
“meal” seems counter intuitive to people who are trained (via advertisements)
to crave a drippy double bacon cheeseburger.

American filmmaker David Gelb has wonderfully explored just how high the (sushi) bar can be set in Japan in his 2011 documentary film Jiro Dreams of Sushi. The feature film has earned high acclaim among foodies who can hardly be considered “an itsy bit wacky.”

It may not be because of the taste per se, but rather sushi’s
mistaken identity as fast food.
Few Americans have gone beyond the plastic take-out pre-fab o-bentos-to-go (aka box lunches), even to try kaiten zushi or kuru-kuru sushi (conveyor belt) cafes where the food revolves within
the circle of diners.

While Colonel Sanders and Ronald McDonald seem to have had great
success tapping into the Japanese market, on the other end of the spectrum, the
traditional Japanese sushi bar has yet to be widely replicated, much less
improved abroad. One daring sushi chef in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA created Hayai Zushi (Click link to see a video of the drive-through experience.), probably the
world’s first fast-food drive-through joint where the patrons revolve around
the sushiya. It closed due to bad reviews of the food quality, the wait and, most probably,
poor market research by the proprietor about patron expectations. It seems that
some additional invisible aspect of the Japanese food experience was noted as
missing.

The santoku (type of
Japanese knife) wielding proprietor of the spare 10 seats subterranean
“Sukiyabashi Jiro” (すきやばし次郎）tucked into the warren of a Ginza
subway stop, is the octogenarian Jiro Ono. The ultimate gourmet cross-over
artist, his is the only sushi bar to win the coveted culinary constellation of
three Michelin stars. That honor would have been enough for the average Western
chef, but to Jiro-san the greater recognition of his capacity as a shokunin (Craftsman with a capital C) is the Japanese
government’s designating him as a “Living National Treasure. [Caution: One
should resist discussing this film with your local sushi chef; s/he might be
embarrassed or feel inadequate, despite the fact s/he is doing her / his best
for you.]

If
we are what we eat … can we also be what we cook, or in Jiro’s case, what we
slice? The film’s portraits of the sushi are mouthwatering. The editing, like
Jiro’s fish, is carefully filleted; one online film critic called it
“clinical”. While not actually having put fish to mouth, nonetheless we leave satisfied
having devoured something truly amazing with our eyes.

Gelb offers a stunningly clear-focus on
exquisiteness, freshness, attention to detail, and determination that happens
to be about food. Its freeze-frames shows dazzling, shiny, finger-length slabs
of freshly caught raw fish lounging on a pod of rice and how fish-laden pods
land one at a time on a pristine black lacquer tray at each guest’s place at
the wooden counter.

The
film is foremost a biography of an otherwise nondescript, older, wrinkled-face
man who makes his living standing up for hours in a tiny restaurant in a subway
stop. A self-made, counter-cultural figure for all his 85 years, Ono-san is an
“outsider”, if only for the fact that he is hidari-kiki, left-handed in a very right-handed world, and
brandishes long sharp knives in very close quarters. Yet he also sees the
bigger picture and is very accommodating, placing the sushi on the diner’s tray
angled so that the average (right handed) patron— each of whom has waited about
a month for this reservation— may easily grab it with o-hashi.

In Jiro’s world, we are not just talking raw
fish on rice … we’re talking about raw fish on rice! A meal at Sukiyabashi is priced at around $300 per
diner for a 45 minutes omakase (chef’s
choice) meal of 20 single piece servings.

The
master is as obsessed with polishing his character as he is with polishing his
knife and cutting board after each slice of fish. Throughout the film, Jiro
keeps his emotions … like his fish … simple, essential and fresh in the
moment. It is therefore not
unexpected that he doesn’t seem to be as concerned with the future as might
other Living National Treasures who are preparing to retire. He has no such
plans, clearly to the chagrin of his protégés – his two sons who are about
retirement age themselves.

The older son, Yoshikazu, aspired to be a
racecar driver, but has been working alongside his aging father for years. If the day will come in his lifetime that his father retires, Yoshi will take
over the restaurant. That is, the younger Ono-san reflects, if the seas aren’t
fished out thanks to the worldwide sushi craze. He is concerned about the
sustainability of the fish as well as the restaurant.

The younger son, Takashi, runs Sukiyabashi Jiro
in Roppongi Hills. The two-Michelin star sushiya is laid out as the
perfect mirror image of the Ginza location and boasts the same flavors and
techniques as the original. The elder Ono is proud to say that Tashi’s food
would not be distinguished from his own by either clientele.

Cwiertka’s
thesis about the mythical nature of the notion of Japanese cuisine as a
“refined, time-honored philosophy and practice” falls flat when considering the
path taken by Yoshihiro Murata to his livelihood as detailed in his exquisite
autobiographical look ‘n’ cook book Kaiseki: The Exquisite Cuisine of
Kyoto Kikunoi Restaurant.

The
third generation chef - owner of the famed Kikunoi restaurants in
Kyoto and Tokyo, Yoshihiro did not jump to claim his place in a 400-year-old
lineage. (The earliest generations began cooking for Shogunate regents and
their cronies in the 17th Century at Kodaiji Temple.)

“While
still in college, I stunned my father by announcing that I would not follow him
at the restaurant; that I wanted to cook French cuisine instead.” The elder’s
reaction was instantaneous, “Then go to France. I’ll take care of your
expenses.” Yoshi reflected, “It was my turn to be shocked, since I had never
thought about such a drastic move. My mother begged me to apologize to my
father, but I knew I’d have to live with my rashness, and I left for France
with no plans and a blank slate.”

By
traveling around Europe, Murata–san ended up with a deeper appreciation of
Japanese cooking and his birthright to accept. “Our cuisine is a product of our
own DNA,” he believes. Returning home, he approached his father with a
desire to indeed carry on the tradition, but, was “furious at my change of heart
and tossed a glass ashtray at me.” Amends were then made and carry on the
family business he has. He respects and follows the principles that came
through the unbroken legacy from chef to chef. Murata says that his father “bid
us to cook with love, technical skill and passion.

“The food we make
should always be refined and beautiful, but not too delicate. It should never
be weak, but should have an appealing integrity and strength."

These are all apparent in the beautifully
illustrated book with complete kaiseki courses perfectly tuned to the seasons
(and with recipes in the back!) The website is equally
exquisite and should be visited seasonally, especially if one cannot dine
onsite.

In choosing two other chefs to join him in
writing introductions, Murata advances the question about what people can come
to know about Japanese people’s culture through the cuisine. Ferran Adria,
“father of molecular gastronomy” and proprietor of the fabulously famous and
now shuttered elBulli restaurant in Catalonia, Spain, states that Japanese
cuisine is “ … born of an intimate communion between the work of man and the
gifts of nature,” that Japanese work and think “with the soul.” The other chef contributor, Nobu Matsuhisa, whose eponymous restaurant
franchise was born in Los Angeles, comments, “Though many Westerners prefer to
dine from the same menu, regardless of the time of year, the true measure of
the skill of a kaiseki chef is the way he prepares his meal in order to
communicate the atmosphere and flavors of the season.”

This is by no means the end-all in comments
about the topic; rather, it is food for thought about the primacy of food in cultural identity. Food
is ultimately an offering to self and others as a means of surviving. How we
eat is perhaps even more critical. “Eating is not a casual hedonistic act; it
is a ceremony,” notes the eminent contemporary philosopher and theologian Rabbi
Adin Steinsaltz in his condensed explanation of Kabbalah, The Thirteen
Petaled Rose. “When the Temple stood,
ritual sacrifice was itself an occasion for a communal meal in which man
participated with the Higher Power in an act of communion. Extreme care has
therefore to be exercised with respect to what is eaten, and the manner in
which one eats has to be consistent with the purpose of consecration.”

OBSERVER

Lauren Deutsch is the executive producer / director of Pacific Rim Arts (www.pacificrimarts.org), a multi-cultural / multi-discipline initiative through which to explore and promote traditional cultures in contemporary life. She is a contributing editor of Kyoto Journal and writes for numerous other scholarly and cultural print and online publications, as well as public radio and television productions. A student since 1985 of Sosei Matsumoto, sensei, Lauren was initiated as “Sochi” (her professional name) in 1997 by Sen Soshitsu, Hounsai, the XVth Grand Master of the Urasenke School of Tea in Kyoto, and licensed to be an instructor. Lauren can be reached at mailto:sochideutsch@gmail.com.